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The public library service in Great Britain is run as a decentralised function through the local authorities, and is their only statutory cultural obligation under the law (1964 Public Library and Museum Act; original Public Library Act dating from 1850). Whilst almost all local authorities do engage in a much broader range of cultural services and support (legal competence: Local Government Act 1972, section 145) this legislation is merely permissive, which means that the local political administration does not receive any specifically 'earmarked' funding from central government within the redistributive grant mechanism from taxes, as is the case with libraries.

So far as the public libraries are concerned, the 1964 legal obligation is to provide each community with a 'comprehensive and efficient' service. This is clearly very unspecific, and - to take two extremes - will have very different implications for both the public and the providers in an inner-urban area, and in a rural district with scattered population. The 'New' Labour central government in the UK sought to give more definition than had ever been the case before, and to protect declining library services, through the imposition in 1997 of 'Standards of Assessment' and 'Annual Library Plans'. In the light of a whole range of financial and management problems which had affected libraries acutely through the 1980s and 1990s, the government felt a need to intervene strategically in what is, in effect, a local matter. Significant problems included the closure of many branch libraries, reduction in opening hours, reducing value of book purchase budgets, loss of professional librarians and difficulty in recruiting new staff as a consequence of the perceived low status and remuneration of the profession.

2. Current Context and Perceptions

It is worth recording the extremely positive value which the British public still invests in its library service. Despite the effects of the 'paperback revolution', continuing growth in the number of welcoming 'lifestyle bookshops' and the fact that the British public are - per capita - the most prolific book-buyers in Europe, the public library reference and lending services are both regarded as essential elements of a civilised and open society. It is an astonishing statistic that out of a total UK population of 58 million, 69% - voluntarily - possess a public library card. Survey samples over recent years demonstrate that on average, between 55% to 60% of the population (split 60% female, 40% male) make use of the public library service (in 1998 there were 420 million recorded loans, and 343 million recorded library visits - an average of almost six each if spread across the whole UK population). Incidentally, book sales statistics from the Publishers and Booksellers Associations show that 76% of the individual buyer market buys 10 or more volumes every year (18% buy between 4 to 9 volumes).

Given that the underlying rationale of the British public library service is general acceptance of the right to 'universal free access to all information and literature', backed by legal competence, there are two particularly strong policy strands of the Tony Blair Government which have pushed the libraries into a prominent position, namely:

" social inclusion
" the information age (or 'internet revolution').

Labour by winning the 1997 general election inherited a country, which, though on one set of indicators more prosperous than previously, was also more divided socially and regionally. There was not one Conservative Member of Parliament retuned in 1997 from Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. Consequently, Blair in his first administration, in order to maintain the unity of the nation, had to provide for a degree of devolved government not seen since 1707. The main social priority for his second (post 2001) administration is 'social inclusion'.

3. Continuing trends in public library financing

Despite the conditioning of the British public's mentality through the Thatcher years, adherence to the ethic of a 'free' public library book and reference service is still extremely strong. Since this means that the articulate general public view is that citizens expect their taxes to pay for it, it has, perhaps ironically, been more difficult for the public libraries to secure new 'private' sources of funding than other, less secure, service areas. It is still the case that, on average, up to 90% public library expenditure is directly funded by the local authorities (i.e. about 10% of costs are covered from earned income - fines (for late return of books), fees (e.g. for reservations, inter-library loans etc.), hire of audio-visual materials, profit from photocopying library material, grants and letting of spaces). The British Library, in contrast, earned almost one-third of its turnover expenditure during 1998/99 (£39 million out of £119 million). The local authority libraries as an average (1998/99 figures) spend around £14.50 - or €23 - per citizen.

'Fund Raising' as a discrete topic of comment which might reveal useful examples from the UK (public) library sector is therefore not very dramatic. Nevertheless, there is information to be shared about a range of new approaches being taken in certain areas, as well as concerning the extremely high profile gained through the political emphasis on information and new technology. More dramatic financially would probably be the use of significant private and 'Trust' money to endow the growth and development of University and Higher Education Libraries and Archives in Britain. Since the government (through the 'arm's length' Higher Education Funding Council) has for 10 years or more been shifting the basis of funding its core support for higher education institutions to research quality and originality (rather than pure numbers of undergraduate students), there has been a considerable growth in the acquisition and housing of important archive collections, which is often accompanied by trust or foundation money across the arts, technology and science.

4. The 'information revolution' - and the National Lottery

The current British government is giving a particularly high profile to the links between education, access to information, and future prosperity. It was therefore a feature of Blair's first four-year administration to ensure that every primary and secondary school in the UK was equipped with up-to-date information technology and linked to the Internet. In Blair's second term, the objective is to do the same for the public libraries - with a particular emphasis on 'social inclusion' since libraries are generally seen as neutral and user-friendly spaces. This 'campaign' was announced in a speech entitled 'Libraries Entering the Information Age' given by Blair in June 1999. Here is a flavour of the argument:

" "I believe everyone should have the opportunity to join in the information revolution, not just those who can now afford their own personal computer and a modem. That is why we have linked up every school in the country to the information superhighway… The Government is now planning to do the same for Britain's libraries. It will give every citizen the length and breadth of Britain access to the opportunities provided by this new technology."

" "Last year, when I launched this website and set out the Government's vision for IT in the Information Age, I did so at a public library and for good reason. Public libraries already have a vital role in our society in helping provide information, education and entertainment. They are incredibly widely used… and they give access to a wealth of information that the average citizen can not get anywhere else."

" "Because libraries are so much part of the fabric of our lives, they can draw in those people who are reluctant to use other public or community services, or who find difficulty in doing so. I believe IT is important in tackling social exclusion because anyone can walk into a library, sit down at a screen and start tapping away - at absolutely no cost."

The way in which this new politically inspired refocusing of libraries will be funded is through the National Lottery. Opportunistic, of course, and you could question why something considered so vitally important by the Prime Minister is left to the proceeds of a game of chance… Nevertheless, the Lottery, which was created by Act of Parliament in 1993 has since its inception generated a massive amount of 'new' resources for the main designated areas of benefit - culture, heritage, sport and charities. The total amount of money raised and distributed from this source between 1994 and 1999 was £2,700 million - or €4,347,000,000. One-fifth share of the proceeds between 1993 and 2000 was given to the Millennium Commission, whose best-known 'memorial' is the notorious Richard Rogers' 'Millennium Dome'. After the year 2000 threshold had been crossed, this one-fifth share of Lottery money has been re-routed to a 'New Opportunities Fund', or NOF. Much of this money is being spent on school and library purposes.

5. Developments in train

Central Government has now agreed a programme worth £270 million (€462,000,000) for support of the public library IT network. £20 million (€32,000,000) is included for skills training for librarians, £50 million (€80,000,000) for digitising learning materials, and £200 million (€322,000,000) for IT networked infrastructure to support 'Lifelong Learning'. A further £470 million (€757,000,000) has been set aside to create a 'Capital Modernisation Fund'. The intention is that, as already achieved in schools, every public library by the end of 2002 (over 3,500 service points) will either contain, or be closely linked to an IT learning centre, with professional support. By May 2001, 59% of the total number of public library service points already offered public access to the Internet as a precursor to more extensive services.

6. Role of public libraries within a revived book market

Over the past four or five years, the annual value of the book market in the UK has been on average about £3,000 million, two thirds of which is accounted for by 'consumer' (i.e. non-academic books) sales. The book and publishing industry employs about 362,000 people - the majority of them in print, production and distribution. In 1998, whilst publishing houses employed 31,600 professional staff, public librarians in the local authority service totalled 26,300.

The major contemporary development in book selling in the UK came about partly as a consequence of the Government's suspension in 1995 of the hundred year old 'Net Book Agreement' whereby publishers' fixed discounts to booksellers operated on the agreement that the bookshops could only sell at the publisher's recommended price. After 1995, it became legal to discount prices, which clearly gives the powerful bookselling chains, with large volume sales, a distinct competitive advantage over small independent or specialised bookshops. (45% total sales are through five chains). Price has become their main promotional tool. Although the ambience in bookshops has improved greatly, the pressure on 'volume sales' tends to mean that the larger shops only keep in stock what they are confident is 'popular' or will sell reasonably regularly. Efficiency-driven central purchasing also means that there has been a loss of initiative and knowledge amongst staff at the local level. It follows that this development, in one sense, makes the role and position of the public lending and reference library in small towns and rural areas even more important than it was previously.

7. Other 'new' sources of finance for library support and development

Because of the generally accepted public profile of the libraries in the UK, and their limited capacity to 'earn' income without alienating the public, or offending what is regarded as a 'right', creative ways have been sought to support growth in other ways. I briefly summarise four examples, to demonstrate the current range and variety of thinking.

Trust status: the London Borough of Hounslow in 1998 took the extreme step of being the first UK library authority to 'privatise' by transferring the management - within a non-profit framework - of its service to an independent agency. The local authority claims that so far this step has been successful, and is maintaining and improving the library service more cheaply than if it still operated it itself. Government inspectors have subsequently reported that this has facilitated creative solutions to financing and management issues which would have been much more difficult under a traditional arrangement. The strongly Labour-controlled City of Sheffield in the mid-1990s similarly felt obliged to 'privatise' through a Trust its five museums which otherwise (as non-statutory provision) would have been lost altogether.

Public Finance Initiative: During 2001 Bournemouth Borough Council and 'Information Resources (Bournemouth) Ltd.' signed a 30-year agreement to build and manage the facilities of a new central library for the town. An integrated IT solution will be provided across the new library building and for the 11 existing branch libraries. It is claimed that this combination of public and private financial initiative enables the public sector to purchase services from the private sector, avoiding the need to fund the capital infrastructure which the service provision would require.

'Electronic Village Halls': Sunderland, a medium-sized and heavily de-industrialised city in the north-east of England, has introduced a single common access library scheme across all its public, University and College libraries. Active promotion takes place of all these libraries in support of community lifelong learning and retraining programmes. A culture of partnership and support for the scheme at senior levels ensures full collaboration in training needs, provision of electronic journals and support for the national 'virtual' University for Industry.

Local and Regional co-operative schemes: these are very much on the increase. One early example (HATRICS) started in the City of Southampton in 1964. This is a business support and information service for the exchange and provision of scientific, technical and commercial information. From an initial founding membership of 45 organisations, by 1998 this encompassed over 500, mostly in central southern England, but including members in northern France, the network is managed by the Hampshire public library service, and handles over 22,000 enquiries each year.

Sources

The UK Cultural Sector: Profile and Policy Issues - edited by Sara Selwood (Policy Studies Institute/University of Westminster 2001)
Partners and Providers - Higher Education Funding Council for England/University of Warwick Centre for Cultural Policy Studies 1999
Libraries entering the Information Age - speech by Prime Minister Tony Blair, 7 June 1999
New Public Library Standards - Department of Culture, Media and Sport, April 2001
Building the New Age together - article by Alan Howarth, Minister for the Arts (Library Association Record, May2001)
Can you trust this model? - by G. Allen (Library Association Record, December 2001)
A New Path to Follow - by R. Sibthorpe (Library Association Record, April 2001)
Where now for the UK public library service? - by L. Muir and A. Douglas (Library Management 22 (6/7) 2001)